Conventionally, various techniques for a rotor having a structure in which permanent magnets are inserted in a rotor core have been proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2007-97387 (PTL 1) proposes a rotor having a rotor iron core, permanent magnets embedded respectively at a plurality of magnetic pole formation positions set along the outer circumference of the rotor iron core, iron core portions magnetized by the permanent magnets at the respective magnetic pole formation positions to form magnetic poles at a surface opposed to an air gap, and recesses each extending in the axial direction provided at the circumferentially central position in the surface opposed to the air gap of each iron core portion.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2009-124899 (PTL 2) proposes a rotor having a magnetically soft segment between magnetic salient poles, with a front-side permanent magnet being provided between the leading-end side surface of a front-side magnetic salient pole and the front end of the segment, and a back-side permanent magnet being provided between the leading-end side surface of the back-side permanent magnet and the front end of the segment.